I.
Strategy without arithmetic
A strategy that has not been costed in people and capital is a statement of intent. We put numbers against it until it either survives or is honestly abandoned.
Executive advisory
Most strategies do not fail. They are never executed.
I work with chief executives and boards on the least glamorous problem in business: the distance between what leadership decided and what the organisation actually does on Monday morning.
EV
- 22 years advisory
- Former CEO, listed industrials
- Board member, 3 companies
- INSEAD faculty, executive education
- Advisor to 40+ chief executives
The gap nobody owns
A board approves a strategy. Twelve months later, revenue mix has not moved, the two initiatives that mattered are behind, and everyone can explain why. Nobody was negligent. The organisation simply kept doing what it was structured to do.
II.
Incentives pointing elsewhere
People do what they are measured on. When the strategy asks for one thing and the bonus plan rewards another, the bonus plan wins — every time, in every company.
III.
Decisions that never close
The most expensive item in most executive calendars is the decision that has been revisited four times. We find them and force them to a close.
“Elena is the only advisor we have engaged who told the board it was the board's problem. She was right, and it changed how we governed.”
Recent writing
Occasional essays on execution, governance, and the parts of the job nobody puts in the annual report.
The strategy execution gap is a measurement problem
Companies measure whether the plan was written, not whether behaviour changed. Those are different questions.
Read the essay →Five questions a board should ask that most do not
Boards are good at asking what happened. They are considerably worse at asking what is not happening.
Read the essay →Against the first hundred days
The convention pushes new chief executives to act before they understand. The cost arrives in year two.
Read the essay →Enquiries
I take a small number of engagements each year. If the problem is execution, governance, or a decision that will not close, write to me.
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